Cadillac arrived in Formula 1 this year as the grid's only fully new constructor, and seven rounds in it is still the only team without a point. Sergio Perez looked to have ended that wait at Monaco, classified 10th, before a post-race penalty handed the place to Fernando Alonso. The pace is trending the right way. The problem is what happens once the tyres go off.
The single-lap progress is real. Autosport's analysis of the opening seven races found Cadillac has clawed back more than a second in qualifying trim: Perez was 3.098s off George Russell in Q1 in Australia, but only 1.920s away from Lewis Hamilton's Barcelona Q1 benchmark — a gain of roughly 1.4 percent in raw lap time. In Barcelona, a circuit that traditionally sorts the field on efficient downforce and engine power, both Cadillacs out-qualified the Aston Martins by more than a second.
Race day is where it unravels. Autosport's data showed Perez shedding around 0.65s a lap to Carlos Sainz's Williams on the soft tyre before his stop, then closer to a full second a lap on the hards as the degradation bit. Perez does not dispute the diagnosis.
"Whenever we have a stint longer than 15 laps, we seem to struggle a lot with a massive cliff," Perez told Crash.net. "We understand pretty well where that is coming from, and we have a pretty good idea on where to fix it and how, but it will just take a few races from now."
He has been blunt about the root cause. "I think there are several areas, but currently the main one is aerodynamic load. That's where we're lacking the most," Perez told grandprix247 earlier in the season. "The balance isn't too bad, but we lack downforce."
The fix is coming in stages. Cadillac has declared an update at every race this year, and the next is the biggest yet. "We are bringing a big package for Austria. I hope that will bring us into the midfield group," Perez said. Asked whether it would cure the tyre problem outright, he was careful not to oversell it: "No. It will not solve it. It will improve it though, and I think we are looking forward to — hopefully, Silverstone will be the place that we will resolve it."
Team principal Graeme Lowdon framed Barcelona as a known low point rather than a setback. "Going into the weekend we knew that Barcelona would be a much tougher track for us, reflecting where we are on pace right now," Lowdon said in the team's race report. "We now head to Austria, which will be a very different track yet again, but with some upgrades to come we are hopeful of continuing the solid progress demonstrated this year."
Valtteri Bottas, who retired in Barcelona as a precaution after issues on his side of the garage, pointed to the same qualifying gains. "There are still positives to take as we seem to be a bit closer to the midfield in Qualifying and my pitstop was great," Bottas said. "This is all part of the journey we're on, so we'll continue to look forward."
The picture, then, is consistent across the garage and the data: Cadillac can put a lap together, but it cannot yet hold a race together. Austria's Red Bull Ring (June 26-28), one of the shortest laps of the year, may flatter the car's qualifying strength — but with long flat-out stretches and heavy braking, it will not hide a tyre that falls off a cliff after 15 laps. Perez has already named Silverstone as the race where the real answer should arrive.
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